Times Walks: Hallaton and Medbourne, Leicestershire

Photograph by Nick Ray 07775 947241Home News 17th April 2006The centuries old tradition of ‘bottle kicking’ at Hallaton in Leicestershire, where a barrel is wrestled between two villages in a violent scrum.The ‘bottles’ are paraded through the village

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Photograph by Nick Ray 07775 947241Home News 17th April 2006The centuries old tradition of ‘bottle kicking’ at Hallaton in Leicestershire, where a barrel is wrestled between two villages in a violent scrum.The ‘bottles’ are paraded through the villageNick Ray for The Times

Hallaton is a beautiful village, all thatched roofs and golden walls, set in
the rolling wolds of east Leicestershire. But there’s more to it than meets
the eye. Setting off from the Bewicke Arms past the Buttercross on a windy
spring morning, I glanced up the road to St Michael’s Church. In a couple of
weeks’ time Hallaton’s great Easter Monday procession would gather at the
church gates for the ceremonial cutting of a giant hare pie, the gentler
half of the village’s annual